SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

steadfast1973… "I want to send her husband all the emails where she made fun of how stupid and worthless he and I were. I also consider going and getting involved with her BH (ultimate RA) But then I'd just be a ww…."

Yes! I have repeated dreams that I go to the OW's house and have an A with her BH. The revenge feels empowering during my dream, and, of course, in my dream the OW sees it and is devastated. But when I wake up I feel awful. I would never in a million years do that in real life and it's horrible to me to even go there. But, my subconscious does. A few months ago, I told my H about my dreams and he was crestfallen. Just the suggestion of it disturbed him. Oh, the irony. The other BS doesn't even know I exist! I never met him, never worked with him, never masturbated with him over the phone or shared my H's most intimate private world and secrets with him. And yet it was still hurtful for my WH to think about. But, that little baby pain doesn't even come close to the horrid nightmare that he smashed into my head.

I have the dubious distinction of actually having done something to the other man. He used his position as a RR conductor to take my WW on trips, so I wrote to the CEO of Amtrak. I was then contacted by the Amtrak police who took my statement. Next thing you know, he's fired. I lose no sleep over it, but it hasn't done a thing to strengthen my now domestic partnership with my ex wife.

I would like to say - that I think 'outing' the affair is absolutely fine - and often to be recommended.

The minimum consideration is to tell the other BS. (with the proviso of ensuring you and children are safe and ok in this). The other betrayed spouse always has a right to know. And although it is a very personal and difficult choice (and I am very supportive of taking care of yourself first and making sure you are ok).

I don't think it is revenge to also disclose any illegal, unethical or corrupt behavior and actions undertaken in the name of the affair.

Especially if this helps for no contact to be maintained.

A condition of beginning our journey of healing and a part of disclosure was that my spouse had to call his managers and disclose the affair and acknowledge how it had effected his work performance and his less than proper use of work resources. This is what was right for us. Because we needed time off and flexibility to access our therapy appointments and manage my trauma and his depression.

Anyway I digress. Disclosure, transparency are necessary for the healing journey.

It helped to build our trust as well.

Disclosure comes with risks that need to be weighed up by each one of us.

I wish I had had the "honor" of telling the other BS, but finding her, or even finding out about her extistence, was difficult. Thank you Facebook! Oh, and she found out by reading his texts. Strangely enough, this was a year after the A, but he never deleted any of them.

I am almost 30 years out from discovering my WW in bed with another man. And by discovering in bed, I mean literally. In bed. Naked. At 2:00 AM. I came back early from a trip.

We're still married. The memory still hurts.

If I choose to, all the hatred of the AP comes right back. Visions of physical harm and all that.

The key is the choice. Sometimes I choose to, unfortunately, because it is never good. But, oh, what a pull.

I still think Meg's original response here is one of the best I've ever read.

I have. I took some revenge, but it had little affect on her. I still feel like she got off scott free while I am left to clean up the devastation caused by Wh and her. Neither has gotten the karma they deserve.

I know that wanting revenge isn't helpful to my healing. You wonder if "karma" is real & if these people who nonchalantly destroys families have any conscious at all.

I did contact the OW's H within the first few hours of finding out. I simply left him a message on FB. He called me and told the OW "guess who's on the phone." Even with her world spinning out of control, me writing a letter to her employer and getting her fired, I still wanted more revenge. What I wanted was for the hurt to go away. Having somebody else suffer doesn't ease your pain. Only YOU can ease your pain. Not even your WS can do it for you. They can be supportive, but the work is yours alone.

If I sound like I'm not hurting (I am); I'm crying as I write this. During the R of our R/S, so many times I think "this a..hole has gotten away with hurting me more than anybody on this planet." I'm not the type that will let somebody that hurts me just walk away. Again, I end up hurting myself more. I guess I just want to know from anybody out there, do you ever feel like a normal person again? Am I a chump for trying to forgive this guy? I think I have it together, only to have my world crash down again. I'm tired of hurting.

I have thought about confronting OW a lot, in person, but in reality, I wouldn't. I wouldn't get anything from it. It'd just add more stress, more anger, more bitterness. It'd hurt me. I really don't care if it would hurt her or not.

Truth it, my husband's affair was because of his issues. It could've been any woman who was willing, it had nothing to do with OW. I don't know nor care how either one of them are doing. I don't care if they finally became remorseful and fixed their shit, I dont' care if they're just living a total lie. I just don't. If they ever find remorse, they can live with that hell in their head. If they lack humanity to ever see what they've done, well, that's gotta be its own kind of hell. I feel... pity towards both OW in that they were ok being used. Sure OW1 was emotionally invested and thought it was all about "love," but even now she knows about OW2 and knows she was just being used. In my email to her, I told her I hoped she'd one day heal herself to the point where she wouldn't be ok being somebody's #2... and then #3. And I genuinely meant that. I takes a particularly messed up head to be with a married person, regardless of what lies or insinuations they lead you to believe, knowing they're sleeping with their spouse and then using you for a lunch-and-sex.

I guess in a way I see them as mentally ill people. I could be pissed ata borderline for not being apologetic or not having a worse life for being a borderline, but it wouldn't get anywhere.

Better to let that poison go. Focus energies on what you can control and where you are - you, your future, your husband. If your spouse is remorseful, then you have a future where you'll grow stronger out of this. If they aren't, you can still walk away with your head held high that YOU were never ok being someone's #2 and YOU never sacrificed your integrity or devalued yourself to the point of letting someone use you. If they don't heal themselves, they won't ever have that. If they don't heal themselves, they'll continue their lives forever seeking to fill their emptiness with more emptiness. That's misery. I don't need to do anything to give them that misery, they're giving it to themselves.

Take it from someone who has been 100% consumed with hatred for both AP and WW for several months, that shit will kill you litterally.

There is no escaping it when it becomes a consuming fire in your heart, you will become bitter and that will change you for the worst, not the better.

Was too easy for me to hate with deep vengance in my heart the OM in my case, but the TRUTH is it was my WW who allowed it, I didnt really know him, she (WW) was committed to me not him.

If we really what to play far, then we must focus that hatred toward the WS, not APOM in my opinion.

funny how that does not work well...

F...k those a..holes. Let it go.

Revenge is best served cold? However to live through this train wreck shows how strong we are, and at the end of the day, we are strong they are weak, they are selfish, we are selfless.

Morally upright, self assured, capable people, good people, we dont need their venom, let them have it. Let them wallow in filth. Its time to walk away from the poision that hatred give.

This thread is too OW/OM venty for Recon. It's being moved to General.

I have fantasized a lot about taking revenge. An earlier poster wrote of her fantasies of destroying the garden. In the early days, I desperately wanted to "egg" OW's rather nice car, which my husband had driven when the two of them went out to lunch. I was ill at the time and if I could have been certain of never being found out, I'd have done it. But I was afraid of getting caught and the thought of losing my hitherto impeccable reputation stopped me, which, I now realize, was just as well.

I don't think I could ever have done anything seriously criminal and - hate her though I do - I could never have harmed her physically. But over the years, I have fantasized a lot about more adolescent vengeance. And if I'm totally honest, if I could be 100% certain of getting away with it, I fear that I'd do it even now. So it's just as well that I'd be sure to be found out! My point is not to revel in my fantasy life, but to reassure you that you don't need to worry, because your feelings and desires are very natural and, I believe, perfectly normal. It's acting upon the more outrageous ones (as in bunny-boiling) that crosses the line.

I'm afraid that I don't buy all the stuff about forgiveness being good and healing and desirable and making you a better person. I am sure that I shall never, ever forgive OW and that I shall hate her and what she did until my dying day. Nor do I have any desire whatsoever to forgive her, or guilt about not doing so. I am a believer, but I am not perfect and, in this respect, I don't even aspire to achieve perfection.

All that I desire is for the hatred I feel for OW to be at the back of my mind, rather than so near to the front. I hate the way that when we make love, I often wonder whether my husband is using fantasies about making love to her to turn himself on, and I would so love to get the woman OUT of my head! During the day, I don't think about her a lot nowadays, though. But I'd like to think about her even less often, because the less I think about her, the less important a role she will have in my marriage and, perhaps, the fainter will become the scar she left on it.

To cheer myself up, I remind myself that my husband once admitted to a third party that I was a better person than she was. And that, for all my pain, and even if my husband found her more attractive than he found me, I wouldn't want to be her. I have never had much confidence in my appearance. She may be thinner, younger and arguably more sexy than I am. But not for all the tea in China would I want to be her instead of myself. If you were offered the opportunity to be OW, would YOU swap? I bet you wouldn't. So we don't really need to exact revenge, do we? Because, by definition, we win!

[This message edited by Cally60 at 8:02 PM, November 25th (Tuesday)]

Cally60, I'm right there with ya. If I could have caused him grievous, maybe even deadly, bodily harm without being caught, I wouldn't have even given it a second thought. I'd have killed him.

BUT...my kids need me to be out of prison.

My clueless ww actually thought me and OM could be in the same public room together and I commented, "what? do you actaully think I will tolerate him in my view for more than 5 seconds..he will be face down in blood by then, do you really want to see that kind of confrontation, does he really think he can stand in my presence and not suffer for it"...

well he agreed and didnt show up.

Coward.

I often wish the purge were real. The things I would do to her. Let's just leave it at that.

You are completely normal as it seems we all have these thoughts and fantasies. I've talked about it a bit in MC. At our last session, my H referred to the AP as an "ant" and was so upset that I was giving this ant so much of my mind's time and energy. The counselor asked is my H wanted wanted her to explain the power of this "ant". She said the ant helped bring our marriage to the brink of ruin. The ant caused half of the pain I am suffering. That although my H has now shut her out of his mind and life, she lingers in mine because of the power she once yielded. I learned tons via her FB, Instagram, and Twitter before she knew I gained information from them. So it was/is very hard to stop using them as a source of control on my part (control being information). I am getting MUCH better these last 2-3 weeks now. In the beginning (Jan this year), I looked multiple times throughout the day and now I've looked maybe 2-3 times in the last 2-3 weeks. I hate her as I've never hated anyone in my life, but I am fully aware that looking at her social media only brings me down and in no way helps with R. I try to remind myself of this when I get the urge. I hope you can learn to resist with time and work on doing what makes you well.

Steppingup...yeah, in the early days, when she was going to "divorce my ass," and marry prince fuckhead, I told her that it was doubtful I could ever be civil with him at all. She got this condescending tone and said "What about when you come for visitation?" Really, these people think that if THEY are happy, everyone else ouight to just suck it up and get out of the way. I told her that it wasn't 100% sure that I would be the one picking him up for visitation, and she better keep him out of my sight for the rest of his life.

Of course, the story is vastly different. He was the bag of crap that everyone told her he was, the judge scratched ALL of her custody rights from the Divorce, and she of course asked me to come back and try R. And we're trying....

Sorry to sound so smug and self-satisfied, but victories are on short shrift around here. Gotta take them where you can.

I chuckle now at how my anger had me raging like a buffalo stampede. Shrek attempted every way known to whores to wreck my marriage. Once I'd finally reached my boiling point, I DROVE THE KARMA BUS MYSELF!

1. I made 15 copies of every single smutty email, text message, and chat session (about 75 pages each bundle) I could get my hands on and mailed them to her parents, sisters & husbands, brothers & wives, her employer, her best friend, the head of the department of the company she was interviewing with at the time, AND her ex-husband since they were in a custody battle. Best $100 I ever spent!

2. I reported her behavior on company time using company resources (cell, land line, and expense account) to her employer.

3. I also informed her employer that she was a regular pot smoker and that they might want to random drug test her.

#2 & #3 got her terminated from a near 6 figure a year job, the packet I sent to the potential employer resulted in her not being hired, and she lost primary custody of her son.

After all that she STILL had the nerve to threaten to sue me and since I am in an alienation of affection state, I invited her to do just that so I could sue her ass right back. I also reminded her that I still had about 15 naked pictures she sent to my husband and I was just waiting for a reason to mail those out as well as use them as Exhibits X, Y, & Z.

Am I proud of my behavior now? Depends on the day you ask me.

Am I proud of my behavior now? Depends on the day you ask me

Chicky...Well I'm proud of you...I believe in consequences and I made sure my FWH's whore suffered plenty of them. I'm not a fan of the high road.